PaperbackExpected publication: November 7th 2017 by Archipelago Books (first published November 18th 1999)A daring novel that made Christine Angot one of the most controversial figures in contemporary France recounts the narrator’s incestuous relationship with her father. Tess Lewis’s forceful translation brings into English this audacious novel of taboo.
The narrator is falling out from a torrential relationship with another woman. Delirious with love and yearning, her thoughts grow increasingly cyclical and wild, until exposing the trauma lying behind her pain. With the intimacy offered by a confession, the narrator embarks on a psychoanalysis of herself, giving the reader entry into her tangled experiences with homosexuality, paranoia, and, at the core of it all, incest. In a masterful translation from the French by Tess Lewis, Christine Angot’s Incest audaciously confronts its readers with one of our greatest taboos.
JEEZ – W.T.F. did I just read???
The novel closes powerfully–I will say that. Over and over again, the narrator compares herself to a dog. She feels so ashamed of her actions–that she may have even thought she liked her actions at the time, and even now in retrospect–that she compares herself to a dog as someone she loves leaves her:
“It wasn’t his brains I was sucking, do you realize, I could have had very handsome men, I could have loved Nadine’s movies, I could have spent Christmas Eve with you. Either had very handsome men or been with you. But no, you see, Marie Christine. You’re leaving tonight, we canceled the tickets to Rome. You’re going to be with your family, I’m weeping like the dog I am, you don’t celebrate Christmas with your dog. Dogs are stupid, you can get them to suck on a plastic bone, and they’re stupid, dogs believe you. They don’t even notice what they’re sucking on. It’s horrible being a dog.”
There were moments when I thought, “Whew! Might not make it through this one! This stream of consciousness makes me want to slap her and tell her, ‘Sit down and be quiet!'”
This novel was characterized not only by the graphic nature of the relationships described here (incestuous fallacio inside of a church confessional anyone??) but by the chaotic stream of consciousness Angot used to give us her story. Honestly, I both expect and respect that this stream of consciousness is probably what it REALLY sounds like in our heads when we are distressed like this–so unnerved that we feel we’re really bursting out of our heads, seams popping us undone like a shoe two sizes too small. So, Christine Angot shows IMMENSE talent in being able to convey that so effectively. I will give her that. I decided to push through a bit longer and there were moments of gleaming, shining narration that took my breath away–whether for good or bad reasons you can be the judge, but I’d argue that the ability to do so at all can only be all good, no matter the road we took to get there.
“Drinking, to get control, I had to call her two hundred times in those anxious days. It’s normal. And at night. You stop, that’s it. It happened yesterday. I stopped it all. I don’t call anymore, I don’t love her anymore…But the last forty-eight hours, I spent them crying, telephoning, running around, delivering letters, running to get a taxi, the taxi wasn’t going fast enough. I stopped, but not on my own: she said stop. She couldn’t take it anymore either. I begged her for one last weekend. To do the thing I never do, to lick, I can say it, I hoped to be revolted by it for good.”
For me, it wasn’t that the subject matter here bothered me–I have a strong stomach for the taboo and love reads that push all of my limits. It was the author’s method a stream of consciousness that at times maddened me (fitting, perhaps) and at times impressed me. I want to experience the inner thoughts of a manic, yes–show me that!–but I do not want to live inside of those thoughts at that high a frequency of mental vibration for an entire 200 pages. Ultimately, I was too compelled to skim through the read because of this manic narrator’s voice, and for that I give the 2*, though there were definitely some shining moments to be found within these pages.
I could say, “Full review to come” but I think that’s probably enough for now, don’t you? Not even sure how to rate this one, but I’m leaning toward 2* at the moment. Will get my bearings and then possibly reconsider… 🙂
The cover art, though is absolutely exquisite. So simple and yet so beautiful, so telling.
**I received an advance-read copy of this book from the publisher, Archipelago Books, via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
French novelist and playwright, she is perhaps best known for her 1999 novel L’Inceste (Incest) which recounts an incestuous relationship with her father. It is a subject which appears in several of her previous books, but it is unclear whether these works are autofiction and the events described true. Angot herself describes her work – a metafiction on society’s fundamental prohibition of incest and her own writings on the subject – as a performative (cf Quitter la ville). Angot is also literary director for French publishers Stock.
